Nuclear Health and Safety

In an earlier report (GAO/RCED-91-31, Jan. 3, 1991), GAO discussed the Department of Energy's (DOE) efforts to clean up the solar evaporation ponds at its Rocky Flats Plant in Colorado. DOE is trying to excavate the ponds used for storing and evaporating low-level radioactive and hazardous waste and stabilize the material by mixing it with concrete. DOE issued a press release in March 1991 stating that it has imposed strict cost control measures in managing the project. Yet DOE's most recent cost data show that total cleanup costs have soared to an estimated $169 million through completion in 2009--$50 million more than the amount GAO reported nine months ago. Delays have plagued the completion and approval of the managing plans for conducting and monitoring the program. Cleanup activities that DOE expected to resume by December 1990 have not yet begun. DOE will not meet the first major milestone of the solar ponds program--cleaning up the ponds and moving all the "pondcrete" off site by October 1991. Further, unless DOE provides enough project funding or resolves concerns over pondcrete disposal in Nevada, it will not finishing pondcrete processing before Rocky Flats' interim status permit for pondcrete operations expires in November 1992.

GAO found that: (1) although DOE stated in its press release that it has imposed strict cost control measures, the most recent DOE cost data show that the total cost for the solar ponds clean-up program has escalated to an estimated $169 million through completion in 2009; (2) DOE attributes this $50-million increase in program costs to increased labor costs, higher inspection and maintenance expenses, and the inclusion of waste burial expenses in the program's costs; (3) delays occurred in the completion and approval of the management plans for conducting and monitoring the program; (4) final approval of the project management plan was delayed to incorporate the activities of a subcontractor and did not occur until September 1991; (5) according to DOE officials, pondcrete clean-up activities that were expected to resume by December 1990 had not begun; (6) DOE will not finish cleaning up the ponds and moving all pondcrete off site by October 1991, the first major milestone related to the solar ponds program; and (7) unless DOE provides adequate project funding or resolves concerns over pondcrete disposal in Nevada, it will not finish pondcrete processing before Rocky Flats' interim status permit for pondcrete operations expires in November 1992.